Even America, supposed land of the free (now of the shackled) and beacon of liberty (now of oppression), is not exempt.

“The average American family will spend 29% of its income on taxes… By giving the political class 29% of your earnings, you have less freedom to live where you want to live. You have less freedom to send your kids to better schools. You have less freedom to start your own business. You have less freedom to give your personal wealth to your favorite charities. You have less time to indulge in your favorite past times. You have less freedom,” wrote Walter Korschek of Digital Journal.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Tom Hintze of Alternetexplains: “There is a deeply disturbing pattern of escalating infringements on civil liberties that has been normalized, beginning with the Patriot Act and extending to drone warfare, activism, and the surveillance and prosecution of members of the press. Many politicians would have you believe that this is a fair trade-off for liberty. But Americans are beginning to see the architecture of oppression swelling around them.”

Oh, they’ll tread on you, alright.

Such a systematic oppression is not confined to a government’s own borders.

There are also nasty surprises that governments have in store for countries they don’t like. Beside the most obvious mechanism, which is war, the one they resort to the most is sanctions.

Like every other weapon in a government’s arsenal, sanctions only serve the highfalutin politicians, not the People.

When a foreign country, such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela, or Cuba, is at the receiving end of US sanctions, only the people suffer.

Americans suffer because they can’t export as much, so they lose money. The people in those foreign countries also suffer because they cannot receive the benefits of American-made products to make their lives better.

Either way both governments benefit. How?

The US government enlarges its reach of power much like a two-bit mafia don: “Do what I say or else. Capisce?” It does not suffer because it produces nothing, and its long arm is in every American pocket via the IRS and other tax authorities.

The foreign government is also happy because it too is a two-bit mafia don, with its hands on every lever of its country’s economy. When its people cannot progress, they’re at its mercy: “Do what I say or no bread. Capisce?”

So the government overlords on both sides go on living the high life on the taxpayers’ dime, while the people sink in misery.

Hopefully, the time will come when men and women of conscience everywhere will rise up and take over these gargantuan enterprises know as governments, and turn them into tools of the people as they were intended to be.

Apparently, that time has begun to timidly dawn as we are finally witnessing the rise of such an individual in the person of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who professes to be a devout Russian Orthodox Christian.

“Many Euro-Atlantic countries have abandoned Christian values that form the basis of Western civilization and have adopted policies that put a large family on the same level as same-sex partnerships, and faith in God on the same level as faith in Satan,” remarked Putin at Valdai in 2013.

Furthermore, Putin understands the maleficent nature of Empires, and refuses to accept the United States Government as such (i.e., as the dictator/sovereign/god of this world); an immoral and amoral role that places a human institution squarely above the One true God and His anointed Christ – not unlike every Emperor who once existed and believed himself god.

“What is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, it refers to a type of situation where there is one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making. It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. At the end of the day, this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within… I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world…. the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilization,” explained Putin at Munich in 2007.

Despite the US’s aggression, every move the Russian leader has made on the international stage has shown that he has the best interest of his people and the people of the world at heart.

He resurrected his country out of decades of misery and poverty, and reasserted the Russian Bear as a powerful player in world politics.

He kept his cool throughout the Ukrainian crisis and did not overreach, otherwise we would have found ourselves in World War 3.

He stopped the American Empire in its track by protecting Syria from a US aerial bombardment a la Libya, and shielded its Arab ally from America’s rabid dog Israel and its Frankensteinian creature ISIS. Hence, he prevented that Mid-East quagmire from escalating into a major regional war that would have reverberated across the world.

We hope that this trend of his continues, and that more men and women of his caliber will follow.

Until then, or until humanity rids itself of useless and oppressive central governments, tolerating only local governing councils, be vigilant.

“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Galatians 5:13